Historical smarts

Message 481 of 881

When slave ran north to freedom they were at a disadvantage, tey had mimimum knowledge of geography unless they were fortunate to have been able to move around. So the had to rely on supports from other slaves, the underground railroag and their own creativity. One way of guidinf where you were going was through song. The going north was to follow polaris ther North Star at the end of the big dipper. The so follow the drinking guourd was the map and compus:
"Follow The Drinking Gourd"
(song lyrics)
Follow the drinking gourd
follow the drinking gourd For
The old man will be waiting to follow you to freedom
follow the drinking gourd.
The riverbank makes a very good road
The dead trees show you the way
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on
Follow the drinking gourd
When the sun comes back and the first quail calls
Follow the drinking gourd
For the old man is waiting to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd Sinf along with Ritchie Havens
view link
One man Henry Box Brown(1815–c.1879) aVirginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia in a dry goods container. During the trip, which began on March 29, 1849, Brown's box traveled by many means: by wagon, then railroad, steamboat, wagon again, railroad, ferry, railroad, and finally delivery wagon. Several times, workers placed the box upside-down or handled it roughly, but Brown always remained still and gave no indication that he was inside. Brown escaped detection on the 27-hour-long journey.
Upon arrival in the "City of Brotherly Love", the box containing Brown was received by McKim, William Still, and other members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee. When Brown was released, one of those present remembered his first words as "How do you do, gentlemen?" He then sang a psalm from the Bible he had previously selected for his moment of freedom.
Afterwards he gets his freedom he joins the abolitionists.as a noted abolitionist speaker and later a showman.
Yichel

posted by yichel

The level of ignorance of the slaves is really beyond our current comprehension . They could not read , there was no TV or radio , so they had absolutely no souce of news , zero education , no knowledge of history or geography . Many had never been off the plantation where they were born and most had never been further than the nearest small town .

posted by Dirck
10 months ago

They might have been ignorant but hey had wits about them and they seem to have been able to keep up with some ofthe important news. It is cited how slaves in America knew about it the news from over the ocean Some ofthem seemed to have developed a ggrapvine for passing info. Remember most could not ra or write, originally they might have come from the various tribes speaking different dialects. I have always held the belief that even in the slav ships chained the captives had the need to speak to each other and might habe developed a very basic lengua frenca (first words: help, hate, home. hate, food, hate)
yichel

posted by yichel
10 months ago

It was against the law to teach slaves to read and write. Though some masters did teach some who they used as clerks. I believe Thomas Jefferson taught some of his household slaves to read.
My step grandmother's sister-in-law was descended from Jefferson through one of his slaves. She had a Louis XV glass china cabinet that was filled with an almost entire set if deHavilland china that Jefferson acquired as Minister to France. It was buried in a cemetery in Virginia during the civil war.
I tried many years ago to help her to get it returned to Monitcello, but the historical people didn't follow through. At her death the cabinet and china were passed onto one of her nieces.

posted by Ghostdancer
10 months ago

It was aganst the law to teach slaves to read, Nevertheless some intresting people did just that thomas Stonewall Jackson taught all the slaves he owned to read. so they could read the bible even about Exodus.
G. washington taught some to read some to do math others he made sure they had skills. I once saw a picture of the plantation plus slave huts he planned to build. Strange his plan incorporated the slave huts into the house. (don't see it as a family though.) but i cannot figure what meaning it might have had for him. G. W hd a very famous body servant, william, who travelled with him, rode along side and was one of the few riders to keep up eith G.W. I always wished that someone would write a biography abou this guy who must have had one complicated life.

posted by yichel
10 months ago

Enslaving the black community was out of necessity. Indian's were to strong willed and poor white could easily run away and blend in with society. A black person was perfect; they couldn't hide their color and being shipped in across the seas took all hopes away to return. Their will was broken first from they're own people in their own country...traded by rival tribes and cursed as they were put on boats. They're cultures, names, family, titles, and languages were all stripped from them. This would break anyone's spririt. They weren't taught to read and write to keep them mentally enslaved; but they were very smart people. They created ways to preserve themselves by being over-worked and one way was to play the role of being to dumb to do certain jobs.
Slaves spent alot of time being boxed in a world of captivity. And like when a person is blind their sense of smell, touch, and hearing become more keen. I think they were much more keen than we realize.

posted by Belovmari
10 months ago

American aborigines had a bad habit of dying off by the thousands from the European diseases of measles, small pox, alcohol poisoning, bullets and cannon balls and priests. After the priests forced massed baptisms onto them, then it was okay to kill them since their souls would go to heaven.
The Africans, having survived being enslaved by their own people and sold to muslim Arab slave traders and then endured the horrors of being crammed like sardines into the holds of slave ships; were a much more durable product when they arrived in the Americas. They could withstand hard labour forced from them and were, by then, more docile, having had their spirits crushed.
Today we can only intellectually understand what slavery was about, either as whites or blacks. The brutalizing effects of buying and selling humans and forcing them into hard labour was real fact of the day until the Civil War put and end to it. The mind set of many was that the war was necessary to stop slavery, but very few held that former slaves were equal to the dominant white race. It is taking hundreds of years to erase discrimination based on skin colour. Vestiges still exist when people refer to humans of different colour as being of a race.
There is only one race. The Human Race.
Skin colour, hair and physiognomy are simply biological variations.

posted by Ghostdancer
10 months ago

Theodore Bikel was the man who I best remember singing this ong:

Theodore Bikel He was a baritone. Had an interesting career too.

My so-called "slave diaries" were very basic because of the lack of education.